Sallust, The Conspiracy of Catiline
"What I have been meditating you have already heard separately. But my ardor for action is daily more and more excited, when I consider what our future condition of life must be, unless we ourselves assert our claims to liberty. For since the government has fallen under the power and jurisdiction of a few, kings and princes have constantly been their tributaries; nations and states have paid them taxes; but all the rest of us, however brave and worthy, whether noble or plebeian, have been regarded as a mere mob, without interest or authority, and subject to those, to whom, if the state were in a sound condition, we should be a terror. Hence, all influence, power, honor, and wealth, are in their hands, or where they dispose of them; to us they have left only insults, dangers, persecutions, and poverty. To such indignities, O bravest of men, how long will you submit? Is it not better to die in a glorious attempt, than, after having been the sport of other men's insolence, to resign a wretched and degraded existence with ignominy?…
There were some, at that time, who said that Catiline, having ended his speech, and wishing to bind his accomplices in guilt by an oath, handed round among them, in goblets, the blood of a human body mixed with wine; and that when all, after an imprecation, had tasted of it, as is usual in sacred rites, he disclosed his design; and they asserted that he did this, in order that they might be the more closely attached to one another, by being mutually conscious of such an atrocity.
Conspiracies are real. There is no doubt that in 63 BCE Catiline gathered a number of prominent Romans in order to kill their enemies and gain control of the State. Sallust offers us a list of the sorts of Romans who participated:
At that meeting there were present, of senatorial rank, Publius Lentulus Sura, Publius Autronius, Lucius Cassius Longinus, Caius Cethegus, Publius and Servius Sylla, the sons of Servius Sylla, Lucius Vargunteius, Quintus Annius, Marcus Porcius Læca, Lucius Bestia, Quintus Curius; and, of the equestrian order, Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, Lucius Statilius, Publius Gabinius Capito, Caius Cornelius ; with many from the colonies and municipal towns,16 persons of consequence in their own localities. There were many others, too, among the nobility, concerned in the plot, but less openly; men whom the hope of power, rather than poverty or any other exigence, prompted to join in the affair. But most of the young men, and especially the sons of the nobility, favored the schemes of Catiline; they who had abundant means of living at ease, either splendidly or voluptuously, preferred uncertainties to certainties, war to peace. There were some, also, at that time, who believed that Marcus Licinius Crassus was not unacquainted with the conspiracy; because Cneius Pompey, whom he hated, was at the head of a large army, and he was willing that the power of any one whomsoever should raise itself against Pompey's influence; trusting, at the same time, that if the plot should succeed, he would easily place himself at the head of the conspirators.
As we have mentioned before, all governments are oligarchies, and Catiline’s conspiracy required the support of powerful Romans and their clients. He needed HIS oligarchy. But this support also required promises. Again, as Sallust states:
Catiline then promised them the abolition of their debts; a proscription of the wealthy citizens; offices, sacerdotal dignities, plunder, and all other gratifications which war, and the license of conquerors, can afford. He added that Piso was in Hither Spain, and Publius Sittius Nucerinus with an army in Mauritania, both of whom were privy to his plans; that Caius Antonius, whom he hoped to have for a colleague, was canvassing for the consulship, a man with whom he was intimate, and who was involved in all manner of embarrassments; and that, in conjunction with him, he himself, when consul, would commence operations. He, moreover, assailed all the respectable citizens with reproaches, commended each of his associates by name, reminded one of his poverty, another of his ruling passion, several others of their danger or disgrace, and many of the spoils which they had obtained by the victory of Sylla. When he saw their spirits sufficiently elevated, he charged them to attend to his interest at the election of consuls, and dismissed the assembly.
The conspiracy was cemented in human sacrifice and blood communion (so the rumour goes). While we can dismiss this element of the conspiracy there is no doubt that Catiline was able to align a group of powerful Romans (and their various connections within the broader community) based on promises of debt cancellation and wealth.
The key to all conspiracies is their lack of visibility. In a Roman context this lack of visibility is framed in domestic terms. While political business ought to be conducted in public in the Roman Forum or Senate House (the Curia), a conspiracy occurs in domestic space, outside of the sight lines of the Roman people and senate. Not only did conspiracies require invisibility they required alliances among the elite for shared and common purpose.
Conspiracies now are of an entirely different kind. They happen in the open, in front of our eyes. The terms and agreements are posted on websites or spread through the digital ether. You just aren’t paying attention.
You don’t know what you don’t know, and this is by design.
How can a conspiracy occur in plane sight and yet no one can see it? The question is crucial for understanding the COVID moment (which has now become the Ukraine moment, and which will soon become the Climate Change moment, which then by late Fall 2022 will return to the COVID moment…rinse and repeat).
We are all victims of our own informational ecosystems. Those on the Left imagine they are informed because they listen to the CBC, NPR or read the NYT. They fail to realize that they are participating in narrative shaping and mirroring. They are not informed. They are simply participating in an ideological feedback loop. Likewise people on the right listen to Tucker Carlson or read the National Review and think they are informed. Like the Left they have fallen victim to the same systemic flaws of their informational ecosystem.
Anecdote Time
A friend of mine talks of trusting NPR and NYT, and implicit in this trust is a distrust of other sources of information.
During COVID I sent him studies on masks (some useful links to studies can be found here). I sent him the Pfizer studies, both those which led up to the vaccine rollout, and the studies in the recent document dump. I sent him scientific studies on the vaccines and possible negative outcomes from them (far too many to link here). I sent him studies on the absolute risk of COVID, which suggested a policy based on age and comorbidity was always the right policy. I sent documentation that indicated COVID was being used as a Trojan Horse for Digital ID. Almost none of this was reported on by the NYT and NPR and he refused to read any of it. In fact, he called me a conspiracy theorist. Rather than read the science he went to the narrative that mirrored his ideological frame, and all other narratives (even those based in science) were deemed untrue even before reading the studies.
This is how the conspiracy happens in plane sight and yet no one sees it.
No one is paying attention.
They embed themselves in their informational ecosystem and reject all other information that is not part of that ecosystem.
Here are a couple rules of thumb.
1) If you are Left Leaning, consume most of your information from the Right. If you are Right Leaning, consume most of your information from the Left. This acts as a check to the ideological mirroring effect (confirmation bias) that might contaminate your understanding of reality.
2) Assume all the information you are consuming through media outlets is a form of propaganda. Remember, media “mediates” your interpretation of information. If your world view is “mediated” this world view is not your own, it is the world view of the mediator. If you assume your media is attempting to manipulate your perception of events you employ a more skeptical assessment of information. Be aware, do not let the skepticism become cynicism.
COVID has exacerbated the crisis of mediation.
While you were obsessing over masks and vaccines (one shot, two shots, three shots, four shots, five shots…), calling the unvaxxed racists and misogynists, actively practicing in medical apartheid with your vaccine passports, cancelling holidays and burying your family members over zoom…while you participated in ideological mirroring….a conspiracy has been occurring in open sight.
You were just looking elsewhere.
On February 14 2022 Justin Trudeau declared emergency powers in order to quash a political protest against a series of COVID policies that violated the sacred right of Informed Consent and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He needed the support of the radical leftist NDP, led by Jagmeet Singh, to seize control of the state. A little over a month later Trudeau and Singh have agreed to join the Liberal party and NDP, which will keep Trudeau in power until 2025, and result in the Canadian Government implementing a radical leftist agenda without any opposition.
The conspiracy occurs in plane sight.
Singh and Trudeau are members of the World Economic Forum, an oligarchic group of elites, who advocate for a post neo-liberal age that is based on equity and inclusion (which are simply euphemisms for a cultural and economic marxism).
I have no doubt that Leftist and Radical Leftist Canadians were avid supporters of Trudeau’s seizing of state control a month ago, and are now gleeful that a more parliamentary acceptable seizure of state control has occurred. After all, they are witnessing the ideological mirror feed back loop. This is THEIR kind of totalitarianism.
For those of us who reject all ideological thinking—who reject all forms of totalitarianism, who see the need for vigorous public debate and the need for an honest media and the need for clear moral and ethical standards of governance (we used to call these civics), primary objectives of which should be improving the Local lives of Canadian Citizens rather than participating in the Global Program of the WEF—this Jagmeet-Justin alliance is nothing short of a revolution.
What does this alliance between Jagmeet and Justin mean for Canadians? We only need to look at the current slate of Bills in the 44th Parliament. I will not discuss these bills in detail. It is not my role to mediate your analysis and interpretation of these bills. I also suggest you read through other Bills under consideration. Some of the work of parliament is proper and ought to be applauded. But other Bills will mean the end of Canadian democracy as we know it.
While you were focused on COVD and Ukraine individuals of the Canadian Parliament have proposed some of the most radical agenda in Canadian history.
With the alliance of Jagmeet and Justin this agenda will pass.
There is no way to stop it.
Your media has kept the agenda silent.
Canada is undergoing a Revolution in real time. It is not being televised.
Bill S-201 (Non-affiliated Senator Sponsored)
This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act and the Regulation Adapting the Canada Elections Act for the Purposes of a Referendum to lower the voting age from 18 years to 16.
Bill S-233 (Independent Senator Sponsored)
This enactment requires the Minister of Finance to develop a national framework to provide all persons over the age of 17 in Canada with access to a guaranteed livable basic income. It also provides for reporting requirements with respect to the framework.
This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things, create the following offences:
(a) causing another person to undergo conversion therapy;
(b) doing anything for the purpose of removing a child from Canada with the intention that the child undergo conversion therapy outside Canada;
(c) promoting or advertising conversion therapy; and
(d) receiving a financial or other material benefit from the provision of conversion therapy.
It also amends the Criminal Code to authorize courts to order that advertisements for conversion therapy be disposed of or deleted.
This enactment amends the Broadcasting Act to, among other things,
(a) add online undertakings — undertakings for the transmission or retransmission of programs over the Internet — as a distinct class of broadcasting undertakings;
(b) specify that the Act does not apply in respect of programs uploaded to an online undertaking that provides a social media service by a user of the service, unless the programs are prescribed by regulation;
(c) update the broadcasting policy for Canada set out in section 3 of the Act by, among other things, providing that the Canadian broadcasting system should
(i) serve the needs and interests of all Canadians, including Canadians from racialized communities and Canadians of diverse ethnocultural backgrounds, socio-economic statuses, abilities and disabilities, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and ages, and
(ii) provide opportunities to Indigenous persons, programming that reflects Indigenous cultures and that is in Indigenous languages, and programming that is accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities;
(d) enhance the vitality of English and French linguistic minority communities in Canada and foster the full recognition and use of both English and French in Canadian society, including by supporting the production and broadcasting of original programs in both languages;
(e) specify that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (the “Commission”) must regulate and supervise the Canadian broadcasting system in a manner that
(i) takes into account the different characteristics of English, French and Indigenous language broadcasting and the different conditions under which broadcasting undertakings that provide English, French or Indigenous language programming operate,
(ii) takes into account, among other things, the nature and diversity of the services provided by broadcasting undertakings,
(iii) ensures that any broadcasting undertaking that cannot make maximum or predominant use of Canadian creative and other human resources in the creation, production and presentation of programming contributes to those Canadian resources in an equitable manner,
(iv) facilitates the provision to Canadians of Canadian programs in both official languages, including those created and produced by English and French linguistic minority communities in Canada, as well as Canadian programs in Indigenous languages,
(v) facilitates the provision of programs that are accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities, and
(vi) takes into account the variety of broadcasting undertakings to which the Act applies and avoids imposing obligations on any class of broadcasting undertakings if that imposition will not contribute in a material manner to the implementation of the broadcasting policy;
(f) amend the procedure relating to the issuance by the Governor in Council of policy directions to the Commission;
(g) replace the Commission’s power to impose conditions on a licence with a power to make orders imposing conditions on the carrying on of broadcasting undertakings;
(h) provide the Commission with the power to require that persons carrying on broadcasting undertakings make expenditures to support the Canadian broadcasting system;
(i) authorize the Commission to provide information to the Minister responsible for that Act, the Chief Statistician of Canada and the Commissioner of Competition, and set out in that Act a process by which a person who submits certain types of information to the Commission may designate the information as confidential;
(j) amend the procedure by which the Governor in Council may, under section 28 of that Act, set aside a decision of the Commission to issue, amend or renew a licence or refer such a decision back to the Commission for reconsideration and hearing;
(k) specify that a person shall not carry on a broadcasting undertaking, other than an online undertaking, unless they do so in accordance with a licence or they are exempt from the requirement to hold a licence;
(l) harmonize the punishments for offences under Part II of that Act and clarify that a due diligence defence applies to the existing offences set out in that Act; and
(m) allow for the imposition of administrative monetary penalties for violations of certain provisions of that Act or of the Accessible Canada Act .
The enactment also makes related and consequential amendments to other Acts.
This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to lower the federal voting age in Canada from 18 to 16 years of age.
Preamble
Whereas every person should have access to a livable basic income;
Whereas the provision of a guaranteed livable basic income would go a long way toward eradicating poverty and improving income equality, health conditions and educational outcomes;
Whereas the provision of a guaranteed livable basic income would benefit individuals, families and communities and protect those who are made most vulnerable in society, while facilitating the transition to an economy that responds to the climate crisis and other current major challenges;
And whereas a guaranteed livable basic income program implemented through a national framework would ensure the respect, dignity and security of all persons in Canada;
…
3 (1) The Minister must develop a national framework for the implementation of a guaranteed livable basic income program throughout Canada for any person over the age of 17, including temporary workers, permanent residents and refugee claimants.
Bill C-226 (Green Party Sponsored)
Preamble
Whereas the Government of Canada recognizes the need to advance environmental justice across Canada and the importance of continuing to work towards eliminating racism and racial discrimination in all their forms and manifestations;
Whereas a disproportionate number of people who live in environmentally hazardous areas are members of an Indigenous, racialized or other marginalized community;
Whereas the establishing of environmentally hazardous sites, including landfills and polluting industries, in areas inhabited primarily by members of those communities could be considered a form of racial discrimination;
Whereas the Government of Canada recognizes that it is important to meaningfully involve all Canadians — and, in particular, marginalized communities — in the development of environmental policy and that racial discrimination in the development of environmental policy would constitute environmental racism;
Whereas the Government of Canada is committed to assessing and preventing environmental racism and to providing affected communities with the opportunity to participate in, among other things, finding solutions to address harm caused by environmental racism;
And whereas the Government of Canada recognizes that collaboration and a coordinated national strategy are key to promoting effective change and achieving environmental justice;
1 The definition future elector in subsection 2(1) of the Canada Elections Act is replaced by the following: future elector means a Canadian citizen who is 14 years of age or older but under 16 years of age. (futur électeur)
2 Section 3 of the Act is replaced by the following:
Persons qualified as electors
3 Every person who is a Canadian citizen and is 16 years of age or older on polling day is qualified as an elector.
This enactment amends the Criminal Code to broaden the provisions relating to hate propaganda by making it an offence to publicly display visual representations that promote or incite hatred or violence against an identifiable group.
One only needs to skim through these Bills in order to see the underlying agenda at play.
The first is to lower the voting age to 16. This would likely increase voting for the NDP and Liberal Party. In addition, there is serious consideration for a Universal Basic Income (called a Livable Wage). Lower the voting age and give out “free money” (ie money paid in taxes by those who make enough money to pay taxes). In addition, Conversion Therapy is outlawed and Racism has been found in the environment, so nature must undergo anti-racism training. The problem with the conversion therapy Bill is it assumes a leftist view of sexuality and gender and imposes this view on those who do not adopt a social constructionist view of society and culture, and it robs parents of the right to frame sexuality and gender in religious terms, or biological terms, or scientific terms etc etc. Conversion therapy does not apply to Trans Conversion Therapy or Surgery (that is the right kind of conversion therapy). It mandates a singular world view with respect to sexuality and gender. Personally, I am against conversion therapy, because the sanctity of the individual is at the core of Western Identity. But this is a domain the government should not legislate. The notion of Environmental Racism, too, is simply an encoding of Leftist discourse onto the discussion of the environment. The Bill inscribes racism into the Canadian landscape. Of course, if there is pollution let’s fix it, but the language of the Bill is really about ideology formation. The environment is just the latest victim of this sort of LowIQ Leftist discourse we have all become so familiar with. And hate symbols must be banned. What are hate symbols and what is hate, and who defines it and how is it defined? Jagmeet and Justin will define Hate for us. People on Twitter are actively calling the Canadian flag a Hate Symbol because of the Trucker Protest. Is black face a hate symbol? What would Justin say? Personally I think that Justin calling people who employ Informed Consent “racists” and “misogynists” a form of Hate speech. These are nearly the worst things you can call someone, and it results in active discrimination and violence against these people. Is that hate? What other emotions can we outlaw? What others thoughts can we criminalize? Lastly, Bill C-11 is one of the most dangerous piece of legislation. Canadian State run media is a blatant propaganda arm of the Liberal Government. Canada now wants all programming to push a Liberal agenda (as though most content already is not obviously Leftist).
For those on the left these Bills mirror their ideological feedback loop.
Of course the environment is racist, because everything is racist. Of course we need UBI because equity demands that we all make the same base line income regardless of our merit or work ethic. Of course, conversion therapy should be banned because radical religious fundamentalists are wrong about sexuality and gender. Of course, symbols of hate MUST be banned, so long as the Left are the ones banning them. Of course, 16 year olds should vote! This is their world too and they are the most informed among us! Just look at Greta! And of course all of our television and media should push Liberal values and ideology, because this is the only ACCEPTABLE view point. After all, there are many in Canada with Unacceptable views and we must change that…
Don’t get me wrong, there are elements of these Bills I do not dismiss out of hand. There are vigorous conversations to be had, and conversations based in good faith. But we will not see good faith in this government. And if these Bills pass Canada will be a fully realized socialist state of one party rule.
Trudeau gets his dictatorship.
The conspiracy happens in plane sight in front of our eyes.
Now look over here at Canada’s Digital ID, as your individual liberty is becoming subsumed within the technological state.
Play this forward: what if you have the wrong political opinions, or the wrong opinions on sexuality or gender, or the wrong beliefs about one’s relationship to the state, or the wrong beliefs about vaccination and informed consent…the Digital ID can be weaponized. You can be barred from services. You can be barred from your bank account. Your citizenship status is now digitized and every aspect of your life must conform to the ideologies of the likes of Jagmeet and Justin. We know this is how the Digital ID will be employed because we witnessed how Justin dealt with protests.
Beat the protestors. Seize their assets. Freeze their account. Leak the information of their supporters to the press.
The Unvaccinated in Canada have already been living under a Social Credit System for months now.
No Vaccine Passport, No Service!
The conspiracy happens in plane sight in front of your eyes.
Note that Canada overtly gestures to the ring of Sauron from Lord of the Rings in their discussion of Digital ID. We live in a post irony society. Canada itself analogizes Digital ID to evil incarnate.
Now go back to COVID and Ukraine.
Everything is ok.
Just download the App.
Just upload your Digital ID.
Your UBI is accessed through it.
Wait, you are not vaccinated.
No UBI for you.